


Phase Midnight: the Doublestuf Files

by WargishBoromirFan



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Het, Het and Slash, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Multi, Project Freelancer, Slash, Threesome, Threesome - F/M/M, Unplanned Pregnancy, vignettes instead of full plotilne
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-08
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-04-02 07:30:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4051558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WargishBoromirFan/pseuds/WargishBoromirFan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU from Phase One: Genesis - One drunken mistake could put South one a very different path through her time in Project Freelancer. Doubtless she'll drag North, Ark, and Georgia along for the ride, but might it be enough to change the outcome of the whole project for the better?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Freelancer_Collaboration](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Freelancer_Collaboration/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Phase One: Genesis](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1061174) by [The_Freelancer_Collaboration](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Freelancer_Collaboration/pseuds/The_Freelancer_Collaboration). 



> A/N: Not mine, including Agent Ark, created by NicKenny of The Freelancer Collaboration. While we haven't gotten the fics updated here like we have on Fanfiction.net, AO3 offers a chance to potentially let loose...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Small semi-prequel piece, as the boys get to know each other upon joining the Project.

**My New Obsession**

**Agent Arkansas**

**Written by WargishBoromirFan**

* * *

" _I went to a fight the other night, and a hockey game broke out_." ― Rodney Dangerfield

* * *

One of the first things Arkansas had discovered about his new roommate was that, at least while in the right mood and given the right topic, Georgia could be a consummate researcher. Another was that the shorter man hated to "make Ark feel left out," and so he had been ignoring the Grifball factoids bounced his direction with thinner and thinner layers of sarcasm.

"...And the pro league ain't just limited to Earth; there're teams from as far out as Haven that I've come across so far; wanna see if there're any from your hometown?" Georgia leaned backwards from the data-pad he'd been furiously scanning, offering brief upside-down eye contact before Ark returned to his own reading. None of it was the links Georgia had sent him within the past hour, though they glutted his inbox.

Ark's lips twisted into something that might be mistaken for a grin. "Trust me, I know there weren't any local teams. We didn't have the equipment." Or the standing buildings. Or the living people.

"Well, you went to school closer to the inner colonies, right? Some kinda fancy military academy?" Ark shrugged. They weren't supposed to be talking about their pasts. He didn't want to talk about his past. "Surely there oughta've been some sorta intramural there, at least. Probably was one at Tech, too, but I never paid it any attention between the broomball and battle-bot ads." Georgia offered an airy, careless wave as he switched to another video on his data-pad. "Kinda wish I'd given more things a second look, now, but I grew up with football and figured I could play that pretty well, plus, well, you probably had a tougher drill sergeant than our ROTC guys; you know what that was like and Tech wasn't even that serious a program - oh hell, the drownproofing course was pretty damn medieval, but they figured buncha engineers would be goin' for the nice cushy pencil-pushin' desk jobs, military grants 'stead o' frontline work, but where's the fun in that, right?"

"Right." Fun. Georgia had joined Project Freelancer for fun. Maine and Penn had tried to kill each other and Alaska talked to walls, but Arkansas had gotten the crazy one for a roommate. _Just remember why you're here,_ he reminded himself. A meeting of like minds would have been nice, but that was not the goal.

"But may as well check out the minor leagues; see what the spirit looks like without all the merchandising; that's what I can't be bothered with 'bout pro football - you don't get to just see the players play unless you can afford stadium tickets, and when are the likes o' us ever able to even predict when we'll be in town for a game and... huh. Ark?" He'd been letting his roommate's voice wash over him like an excitable but inconsequential tide when Georgia suddenly silenced himself, staring at the latest search result to pop up on his data-pad in near-perfect stillness.

Ark offered him a half-curious "hmm?" out of courtesy, not quite sure whether or not he really wanted to know what had caught Georgia's attention.

Georgia turned in his chair, stood, and brought his data-pad over to Ark. "Even if you look at nothin' else about Grifball, look at this."

There was a video embedded in the article, titled something about "Minor League Game, Major League Riot." It was paused on the image of a surging crowd wading in around a handful of armoured Grifball players, only one or two of them still armed. Many of their weapons had ended up in the hands of rowdy sports fans, including a tall blonde woman snatching away a hammer from some poor unlucky sod on the blue team. Ark hit the play button, Georgia leaning over his shoulder as they watched her deck the player Georgia later identified as the "hybrid" twice with the hefty, shockwave-inducing mallet before another eerily familiar tall blond male pulled it out of her hands and dragged her off the injured player. There might have been some explanation for her actions amidst the noise of the swarming madness, but what audio wasn't overshadowed by other cries had been censored by the broadcasters.

Ark himself had no words. After a long, thoughtful silence and a second viewing, all Georgia offered was a breathless, "I think... I think this might possibly be love."

"And I thought football hooligans were nuts," Arkansas muttered to himself. Later research turned up that some heiress local to the teams featured in Georgia's video had gotten herself a permanent ban from their league, no explanation given as to why, though rumours circled that it had cost the family a pretty penny to keep the minor league quiet. Maybe Georgia's research could be interesting, after all.


	2. One of These Mornings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This particular chapter is set at the beginning of Phase One: Genesis's Chapter 59: Splitting Up, with a certain change in the events of that party...

 

**One of These Mornings**

**Agent South Dakota**

**Written by WargishBoromirFan**

* * *

" _I make mistakes like the next man. In fact, being - forgive me - rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger."_

 _―_ Dumbledore, _Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince_

 

_"Ah, hell, I'll get two boys. It'll  frame me better."_

_-_ Roxy Heart,  _Chicago_

* * *

South had made the biggest mistake of her life that night.

Many single women would not consider waking up between two strong, intelligent, and - she grudgingly admitted -physically attractive naked men who were very obviously interested an all bad thing, but it wasn't just the hangover that sucked the moisture from her throat. It wasn't just the force of Georgia's arms pulling her closer or the weight of Ark on her back that drove the air from her lungs. She could bury her aching forehead into the warm brown curve of Georgia's shoulder, block out the light, close her eyes, and pretend she knew nothing, but it wouldn't change the sensation of Arkansas's hands against her bare chest, the rising bruises not simply on her own skin - both men's backs and shoulders had been rent by fingernails and that love-bite she could see against Georgia's collarbone from her current position would probably not match up with Ark's dental-work - the shiver of chilled sweat that remained her only layer between either of them, and worst of all, the stickiness that was not entirely blood and sweat pooled between her thighs.

Half the Freelancers on the ship had teased Arkansas and Georgia for their closeness, and from the tangle of their legs, there was little effort to disprove the rumours. Georgia had crooked one knee about Ark's, entangling with the taller man. Arkansas had left his legs slightly spread, open to any upward thrusts of Georgia's hip to rub against the inside of his thighs. There certainly seemed little worry about who was touching what as they slept. And her legs - her body - had been wrapped around both of them, squeezing around Arkansas's knees just as the two men enveloped her.

She couldn't move. She couldn't make a sound. If she woke them... Well, the two men were likely as sluggish from alcohol and spent energy as she was, but Ark was worryingly close to cuddling her from behind, spooning against her, and Georgia had one hand reached all the way to Ark's ass, but the other was in her hair, fingers buried in the tangle as if looking for the best spots to stroke and soothe and pull her in for a kiss. And they were hard. Neither was penetrating, but she could feel them pressed against the insides of her thighs, solid, tumescent, all but dripping...

There were no used condoms in the floor or dangling drunkenly from the edge of a garbage can. There was no sign of a wrapper, opened or not. This was Georgia and Ark's room; the usual mess was in full effect. Tools were scattered across nearly every available horizontal surface besides the one occupied bed. Blueprints competed with York's attempts at "candid photography" for wall space. A heap of standard black undersuits had piled by the door - her own was probably somewhere among them - and the rest of their armour had been flung to the four corners. It almost made her choke back a sob when she saw the half-finished project flagrantly labelled  **"Georgia's baby - Do Not Touch** " that had previously occupied the centre of the mess, fallen to a green pauldron triumphant on the workbench. She wasn't sure if the armour piece was hers or Arkansas's, but the unfinished mechanical marvel wasn't the baby she was worried about.

It could be Georgia's. It could be Ark's. There could be nothing to worry about. But if they woke...

They'd been drunk. If she could slither away without waking them, they seemed like they'd probably enjoy each other's company, making her presence here even worse, but she needed to escape the slow kneading of Ark's thumbs, the twitch of Georgia's nose as he buried it deeper into her neck, the stretching legs that indicated at best that the two were settling closer to her in their sleep, as if whatever rough, impulsive, half-remembered urges that had driven them to collapse in one bed last night could rise to affection, to - not that word; she couldn't think that word - to something stable as naturally as breathing.

 _No. Hell no._  South didn't care if Georgia pulled on her hair, if Ark pinched her nipples, if she could feel them both slide against sensitive places that made her body beg to linger, she had to slip away, and quickly. Hazel eyes slid open as Ark fell into Georgia, but there were those who were early risers and those had early mornings drilled into them. South gathered a drop-cloth about her and decided to come back for the armour later. She picked up the first undersuit in the pile and rushed from the room before ideals or optimism could convince her to stay.

Surely there was a morning-after pill she could bribe, bully, or steal off of someone on the Mother of Invention. Maybe even one that made her forget the reasons she had needed one and how they'd felt, how they'd looked, how they'd sounded, how they'd tasted in the heat of the night. Something that made her not want to know how that morning might have otherwise gone.

She avoided North's eyes when she changed into exercise gear and "went for a run." She didn't tell her brother where she'd been. He probably already knew; he hadn't seemed too worried. South wished she could be so calm about it.

She took a pregnancy test instead. South took the whole pack, but tried to tell herself she didn't need the pill locked away with the other prescriptions, to be handed out only to those who were willing to say anything to one of the doctors, so long as nothing took anyway - even if nothing was likely to take for at least twenty-four hours and might not for up to a week before she could laugh it off as a close call, a drunken misadventure, a threat safely defeated, as she'd defeated anything else thrown in her path.

She waited to retrieve her armour until she was fairly certain that both Ark and Georgia would have left the room, hopefully still nursing hangovers and not in a position to notice anything purple in the mess. She found it stacked outside the door in a fairly neat pile and wasn't sure what to make of the steel rage that burned in her throat, so she didn't talk much once she suited up and met Carolina coming down the hall, pulling out newbies for their next mission.

South ached all day.


	3. House of Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For better or for worse, the results of that night bring up a lot of questions.

**House of Three**

**Agent South Dakota**

 

" _I want to have your abortion._ "

\- Marla, _Fight Club_.

*

 

"You know I can loop the cameras just as easily in our room; I've isolated us from the main servers for delicate projects before," Ark grumbled as he completed final slices on the in-room electronics. South Dakota was sure he could, but there was no way in hell she could face this where it had started.

 

"Well, our room ain't exactly in a quiet part of the ship. People might start poking their noses in if we can hear ourselves over the power tools." Georgia shrugged, and his roommate loosed a dry chuckle.

 

"Don't I know it." Damn it, why did Arkansas have to look so... so... _wonderful_ when he smiled? Not that she'd let it cloud her judgement again; she knew the coldly arrogant, proselytizing bastard that he was quite capable of being, but then he'd slip up and give something like that momentarily unguarded, genuine grin, and she might picture the care and morals lurking under the assiduously deliberate show of strength. She didn't like to think about why Ark kept up the act, even around people like herself who were perfectly aware of exactly how little that posturing counted for in the grand scheme of things. She'd proved her skill and rose faster than him, after all.

 

"Just do it, sit down, and shut up, Ark," South snapped, not allowing anyone lower on the leaderboard to override her command this time. The hacker gave her a glance dripping with condescending scorn as he logged off, but took a seat next to Georgia, schooling his features quickly back to his usual unreadable neutrality and motioning for her to say what she'd come here to say.

 

Part of her insisted that this was a bad idea from the first impulse. She should go to North first; her brother would listen and support her and show no agenda other than taking care of his little sister through her troubles. And that was why she had to do this her way, by herself.

 

If she really wanted to solve the problem alone, there were ways to do it. She didn't have to tell them any more than she had to tell North. It could have been over and done with as quickly as it took her to bribe a medic. Or she could leave. The second option didn't appeal much to her, but neither did the first. Not when part of her could picture Ark knelt down, hands and forehead resting against a small frame as he explained the (fucked up) way the world worked, or Georgia bouncing through the corridors with something little and giggling held above his head as he mimed engine noises, or two other pairs of hands resting over hers, against her abdomen...

 

She'd make a horrible mother. South was absolutely certain of that, as sure as she was of her brother's aim or Penn's violence. But if Georgia could calm the hell down and Arkansas would pull his head out of his ass and get involved, the kid wouldn't be too badly off with them.

 

So she'd dragged them both to a rarely-used lecture room or briefing chamber or some such shit - whatever its original purpose had been, it had become Ark's hideout away from home and she'd barged into it, bringing Georgia with her because this wasn't just going to shatter her own peace of mind, so they might as well start with Arkansas's secret spot while they were sharing - and sat them down in the first row of benches, feeling slightly more at ease with a table between her and them, on her feet and ready to run or fight while they were trapped by the desk and below her eye level. She paced one or two quick passes of the front, eyes on them as Georgia fidgeted restlessly and Ark held too still. These were her troops for this mission; she could lead them at least through this briefing.

 

"I'm pregnant" still felt like a shot to her own gut from the firing squad of their eyes.

 

"What?" Ark blinked as if he were certain that he'd misheard her. Georgia's mouth hung open, widened brown eyes sidling between the other two as he attempted to reboot his brain.

 

"That night when we all got drunk after celebrating our losses..." It had been such a stupid party, with the sorriest excuse she'd heard for one, but their fellow newbies, especially North and Georgia, had been so relieved to get them back from the med-bay with no lasting injuries that they'd wanted to celebrate their survival against the senior agents, even if that was the last thing South had wanted to think about that night - that bitch Virginia was still on her shit list just for smiling at her brother, let alone what she'd done out on the floor, as far as South was concerned. But plentiful alcohol hadn't seemed so bad an idea, even if it was poor consolation. After six or ten various shots, beers, and glasses of cheap wine, staying longer in the techie-boys' room didn't seem like a bad idea, either, and Georgia's bashful, eager come-ons and Arkansas's understanding looks that spoke volumes from half-hooded hazel eyes burning with poorly-contained passion and sly cunning seemed a much better pick-me-up. "I don't know who did it, but you were both there when I woke up." _And ran like a coward_ , part of her snarled at herself. Fuck it, she was facing it now.

 

Ark just nodded, closing his eyes and swallowing, but Georgia cut off whatever he'd been about to say, throwing an arm around his roommate and pulling him close. "We're going to be fathers!" Georgia's voice was somewhere between a reverent whisper and excited whoop, knotting South's stomach in ways that she half-expected: it was too much, it was callously heartbreaking; that thoughtless optimism was just so typically Georgia.

 

"Usually, there's only one father, Georgia." Ark pinched the bridge of his nose, covering the better part of his expression.

 

"Oh, hang the biology. Either the kid's mine, in which case I add paternal vote to South: we both want you involved or you wouldn't be here -" but she was here "- or it's the genetic recombination of two people I love most in this galaxy and I'd like to see anyone try and stop me from being there for the family I want us to have together." Georgia pushed Ark off the bench and towards the front of the room, arm still firmly wrapped about his shoulders as he moved to catch South, as well.

 

It would be easy to curl herself into Georgia's arms, to let his joy infect her and imagine that there was any way this could end well. But she couldn't read Ark. She couldn't melt if he wouldn't. Rather than risk weakness, she pushed back, maintaining her stance and space, ready to fire off the first insult that came to her mind... just as soon as her whirling brain could dredge up one that would make it all the way past tightened throat and dried lips.

 

"Georgia, I need a moment," Ark said before she could, backing out as well. As broad as Georgia was, he looked stretched thin between them, and South and Arkansas stood only a pace or two apart. "I need a few, really, but this calls for at least a chance to absorb the news before I talk with you both individually." The laughter in his voice as he admitted his weakness was self-targeted and closer to hysterics than South had ever heard from the normally tightly-wound, fiercely private Freelancer, but he couldn't regain composure fast enough to keep the sparks of rage from igniting once more.

 

"Whatever, Arkansas. You take all the time you need. It's not like this makes any difference or anything," she spat, turning on her heel. South could feel her fingernails digging into her palms, biceps tightening in anticipation of the punch she desperately wanted to throw. There was iron on her tongue again. There had to be some way to solve this, and a fight felt like progress. The problem was that only other potential enemy was the thing growing inside of her, and that sounded too much like her mother.

 

South knew she'd be a shitty mother. She'd had the best role model for the job.

 

She'd made it back out into the hallway before she heard her name come all too softly and gently from behind. She ignored it, hungry for the moment when Georgia reached for her, for when she could spin and punch as hard as she could, as fast as she could, her blow evading the hand he'd raised to block, following up with a cross, a leg sweep, raining down a pounding until someone hit back; why didn't he hit back or at least make more of an effort to restrain her? He was barely blocking or dodging her worst blows and Georgia might have been one of the weakest hand-to-hand fighters, but not even he was this useless in close-quarters and goddamnit, she was two months along at most and she was not some fragile china doll that it'd break her and the kid if he just threw one single hit and if she wanted someone to just be an understanding punching bag she had North and she couldn't do this. South didn't realize she'd been crying until Georgia wiped the tears from her eyes, holding her to his chest as he bled on the floor.

 

"Why didn't you go comfort him? He wouldn't hurt you for it." It wasn't giving in to let him pull her forehead into his shoulder, it was just a chance to rest her head and hide her expression. "You said you love him, after all."

 

"Yeah," Georgia agreed thoughtlessly, kissing her temple. "But he needs his space right now, and the other one I love needs to know that we're here for you."

 

"You don't need to speak for him." She really ought to get up. This hallway was currently quiet, but it was still a public area. "Ark has told me how he's going to take this."

 

Georgia rose slower, either from new injuries or an unwillingness to move from where they'd embraced. "Don't count him out yet, South; he does need time to himself to think, but he'll do the right thing."

 

She put her back against the wall, drawing her arms tight against herself. After the physical exertion, she just felt empty. Empty everywhere but her womb. "It was a mistake. It was a mistake to tell you, a mistake to let this happen, a mistake to sleep with you... fuck, I feel like I've done nothing but make mistakes since I challenged Virginia to that fight."

 

"And yet you were the first of us to crack the top six." Georgia took the insult in stride.

 

That was still safe to take pride in, though she felt the weightlessness in her stomach at the thought of how far she'd fall once the Director found out. "I'd be better without making these mistakes. Ark probably feels the same. What should he care about a drunken screw-up as long as he doesn't face the consequences? It just propels him up if I get knocked off the board." Georgia looked like he wanted to argue, but South overrode him. "It was one time. We were drunk out of our minds. Maybe it meant something to you, but that doesn't mean it was love for all of us. So, if you do love him, are you going to walk away with him?"

 

He kissed her hard, pressing her into the smooth, cold steel wall. "I don't want to choose, but you are not going to drive me away this way." She licked away the faint sheen of red salt he'd left liquid on her lips.

 

"You spend most of your time with him." Georgia probably spent more time with her brother, outside of missions, than he did with her.

 

"He's my roommate. I don't get that excuse with you. You caught my eye on the Pelican ride over here, and I've been trying to find the key to getting close without gettin' myself killed since then." Frizzy black curls still brushed against her forehead as Georgia nuzzled in. She could push him away anytime. She should. South shouldn't bend her head down to meet him halfway. "Wanna move in with us?"

 

 _No_. Not until she could be sure, and she'd never be sure, especially not with Ark, especially when despite his embrace, despite his words, despite everything he did do to follow after her, even if he'd never openly said it before today - she didn't count whatever had been slurred two months ago in the dark - she was sure Georgia loved Ark more. He hadn't denied it. She was afraid to ask, afraid of both possible answers. "There wouldn't be room, even if I wanted anything to do with being there."

 

"South... it doesn't have to be in our room. And this love doesn't have stem from just the one time, you know." Pressed against the wall in a public hallway - that sounded like a worse idea than how they'd gotten into this, without even the excuse of being intoxicated. Yet with Georgia finally pushing back, offering her a challenge to rise to, South had to admit that there was a part of her that wanted it, no matter how stupid the impulse was. Her arms snaked up over broad shoulder-blades as he nuzzled against her ear, her palms pressing into his back. "Outside the project, my name's Phineas Jenkins. I thought you should know before I ask." With one last peck to her earlobe, he pulled back, waiting for her to respond in kind. Under other circumstances, she might have laughed - where had his family come up with something so old-fashioned and flashy and ridiculous as the man who carried that name? - but his expression stole her breath better than a kiss.

 

What he was asking for could just be what name to call out when he made her come, but she doubted that. Those brown eyes were too warm, those bruised lips too close to soft and serious instead of simple hunger.

 

"I haven't used anything but South Dakota since I joined the Project. Hated my full name, anyway." North was the only one she wanted any relation with, anyway, and even that could be touch and go, sometimes. Easier to be a Dakota, but better if she were South and North was her brother, instead of her just being North's twin.

 

And now Georgia was offering another identity, another tie, if she were reading him right."Wanna change it?"

 

"I have; it's South, Georgia." She didn't trust this thin thread, didn't trust her grip on it.

 

"Hmm," he responded distractedly, blithely ignoring the comma. "Makes things a little more confusing for what to call me out in the field, but I could learn to like it. And let's not forget that you'll be Momma, too, before too long." His hand was feather-light against her womb; for all the blustering energy and unfazed strength to him, the engineer could be delicate when he wanted to be. Yet this was the riposte that broke her, his killing return blow.

 

"The horribly shitty excuse for one, anyway." She'd wanted this, at least she'd dreamed about this touch, imagined it with something other than sheer terror and yet when it was real, it became too real. Georgia - sweet, goofy, absentminded brainiac Georgia - was in love with her and there was a little person growing inside her and it was easy enough just letting her brother down and why hadn't she told him too and what about Ark; he wouldn't hide in the unused classroom forever and the Director and the other agents... She'd probably have to kill Virginia if the senior Freelancer so much as made one comment, no matter how far South fell down the board.

 

"You're here." Georgia pulled her away from the wall, letting her sag against his shoulder a bit as she took a deep breath. "Didn't get much chance to know my father and Ark lost his whole family young, so we'll muddle through our shittiness and learn as we go. Long as we're here." He was heading back for the classroom entrance, and South leaned against him like she was the wounded animal.

 

"We'll break each other, let alone the kid," she predicted darkly. Anything to delay opening that door.

 

That wide, dark shoulder with its ridiculously pink pauldron moved upwards beneath hers. "We're tough to break. That's why we're here. 'Sides, we can heal." She'd tested his ability plenty here recently.

 

Ark looked up as the door swung inwards. He'd retreated to the furthest row, back facing but not touching the corner and feet planted firmly as he sat, even when his centre of balance had curled forward, inward - South banished the term "foetal position" from her mind before Arkansas had stood.

 

"You two have come to some arrangement, I trust." He tried to sound back in control, back to normal, back to something safe and sane and archly above her dramatics and Georgia's over-enthusiasm. South didn't quite buy it. Ark walked at a more staid pace than his roommate, but the tall, whip-lean man was unhurt and without a hormonal wreck hanging off his side, meaning they met about halfway. "Hopefully your plans don't include killing your comrades," he added, eyes taking inventory of Georgia's wounds.

 

"That depends on yours, I guess," South bit back, determined to meet any height of arch sarcasm the hacker might offer. She didn't quite pull away from the arm wrapped around her shoulders, but she at least straightened, no more willing to show weakness than Arkansas was.

 

"'Cause we were still kinda hopin' we could share them with you." Georgia reached out his free hand to his roommate, letting Ark be the first to make contact this time but openly welcoming it.

 

Arkansas hesitated, readjusting his stance as if to turn the movement into something more purposeful. "May I speak with you alone for a minute, Georgia?"

 

"Anything that needs saying might as well be said with all of us." Georgia shrugged into the role of defender too easily. "No need for secrets, here." He might not need them, but South was not so sure that she didn't.

 

"Perhaps not," Ark balanced his roommate's unrelenting optimism with the same poorly-cloaked tension she felt mirrored in his hazel eyes. "But allow me one more test. This... this just doesn't feel real yet."

 

"Get used to it, because it isn't going away that easy," South snapped. She had gone through only three pregnancy tests since the first one had come up positive, but she'd only had four left. "But go ahead and talk with him; you don't need my permission." She didn't run from Georgia this time, but didn't trail her hand along him as she walked away as he did to her. "I ought to go tell North, anyway," she added more softly once her back was turned.

 

She could imagine the look that passed between the two without seeing it. "South..." Ark knew better than to reach out for her. "If he doesn't know yet, would it be all right to wait just a little longer? I want a talk with you, too."

 

She shrugged, not turning around. "Hurry up and say it; I'm not sticking around. I just thought you should know."

 

"Just... I want to make sure we're all aware of the consequences," Ark swallowed at least a bite of his pride, as if South couldn't predict how fast the Director would kick her to the curb with a kid she was in no way prepared to raise if - when - he found out. "I don't want you to feel pressured."

 

"I can make my own decisions, thank you," she bit back. She shouldn't have stopped. She should have walked right out the door as soon as the desire to tell North _now_ outweighed her need to know how her one-time lovers would react. She would, once it did. "If you don't want to get involved, it's not like that would be a surprise or anything."

 

"Ark," Georgia said, half question and half reproof. "We're gonna be here for you, South. I am, anyway," he added in rebellious undertone.

 

"I've got my brother 'there for' me, Georgia." South took the easy shot when Ark remained silent. "I don't need you to protect me."

 

"I just don't see either of us getting much paternity leave." Ark  took a step back of his own. "In a top-secret project like this, every agent for himself, no contact with the outside world beyond our mission targets... My best mate just dropped the l-bomb right after the woman we both fancy decided to mention that there's a fifty percent chance that she's carrying the only blood relation I've had in fourteen years, and I can't decide whether I'm even capable of loving either of you, let alone the unborn innocent that part of me has had plans to kill from the moment I learned of its existence. Forgive me, I'm a little on edge right now," Arkansas finished with clenched teeth, dropping the dark hand he ran once more across his face as South dared to look back over her shoulder.

 

"I'm not asking you for sex, Ark," Georgia attempted to calm his roommate, mostly making thing worse. "I just wanna let you know you're not alone on this edge." South swore she could see the taller man's eye begin to twitch.

 

"You know that sick terror dropping your gut down a level of the ship or two that keeps your anger unfocused, even as it goads you to fight anything that'll come within range of your secondary firearm? I think that's the emotion he's talking about," South summarized for Arkansas. He nodded, hardly even attempting a condescending smile.

 

She turned her step towards him, pulling the taller male roughly into her shoulder. Ark just nodded mutely, wrapping an arm about her in an uncertain experimental embrace. "Remember, he's feeling it, too," she murmured before Georgia could jump in, as well.

 

"Our kid," Ark tested the phrase as if were as alien a concept as Sangehli coding, not raising his head when his roommate gripped their shoulders, offering a brief pleased, encouraging squeeze as Ark hovered a tentative right hand over her belly. South wasn't sure if she could take seven more months of gentleness. "Yours. Mine. Or Georgia's.  Hell, Georgia's and mine, for what it's worth, but definitely yours, South. Ours." For just a moment, South thought that at least Arkansas would maintain enough sanity about their chances to pull the ice-picks out of her heart, but after a soft sigh into the crook of her collarbone, he continued with, "How the hell are we going to survive this one?"

 

 _"We."_ Like he'd get involved in this mess, too.

 

"I was thinking we could take over the PA system," Georgia offered. "Maybe some streamers in the halls, but I figure that oughta wait until when we know whether it's a boy or girl. Or twins. Anecdotal evidence suggests that if there's one set o' twins in a family, others're more likely to follow."

 

South froze, burying any sign of surprised horror with automatic anger. She was willing to blame the tremble in her abdomen on the way Arkansas had settled his hand for the briefest of instants, only to pull back as if burnt when his roommate had begun to speak. "Georgia, I really didn't bring you this far down to find a quiet place to kill you, but so help me, if you keep talking..." Ark twitched against her shoulder, fighting something wordless and higher-pitched than had ever escaped his lips in mixed company while sober.

 

"I'm only saying," Georgia shrugged, blind to the twin reactions of his would-be lovers. "We could probably just get it out to everyone at once that way."

 

"Why the hell would that be a good thing?" South used the rising rage to her advantage, treating the acid climbing up her throat as choleric bile instead of frightened nausea and narrowing her eyes to keep the water from reflecting. She twitched Georgia away before the tremble in her shoulders could be assumed to be anything other than stifled murderous aggression.

 

Ark was the first to attempt recovery. He didn't quite back out of South's impromptu hold, their bodies quivering at the same frequency just long enough for the taller man's deliberate deep breaths to slow her own pounding heart, slightly. His palms flattened against her shoulders instead of anywhere softer, and Arkansas straightened from his awkward embrace to stand chest to chest, toe to toe with her, purposely seeking out her eyes to confirm that yes, of course he had his shit together; he was Agent Arkansas of Project Freelancer, why wouldn't he be calm and collected about something this goddamn terrifying? South was half-expecting Elite hinge-heads to burst in and try to fry them to atoms again any moment. It would be easier to bear than Ark's next words. "Actually, we probably should make some sort of public announcement. Get it out in the open where no one can make all of us conveniently disappear. Provided that you want to keep it, South."

 

She looked away, not paying attention to the argument Georgia started until it died a faltering halt under the weight of her silence. That... hadn't exactly been her plan, but neither was what Ark was implying. But still, was it fair to dump this on them and not expect to have to do any more with it? Of course not. Was it a mature, responsible, fully-reasoned course of logical action? Hell no, but she'd known it hadn't been from the beginning. That was why she was going to make a horrible mother from the word go: she was too impetuous to do this the right way and her kid - there was surely just one, even a terrible mother was supposed to have some maternal sixth sense or something that would tell her if it was twins, right? It should feel different, weird...er - would be better off with her out of the picture and despite how utterly unfit she was to be a parent, she was just good enough to want her kid to have a half-decent shot at life, as their kid.

 

"Fuck you and your public announcements." There'd been a part of her that had known from the very beginning that this would never work the way she'd wanted it to. It was like challenging Virginia: logic dictated that there was no way for her to win, but pride had demanded she try anyway. "If anyone goes down, it's gonna be me. As far as you two are concerned, you have no idea what happened when we were drunk, you knew nothing before the Director figured it out, and you're above punishment. It's not like it affects your ability to fight and follow orders."

 

"South... you have no idea how much that scares me," Georgia whispered. He didn't try to touch her, reaching for Ark instead. Despite their previous passive-aggressively heated words, Ark didn't shake him off. "Call me an idiot, but I want this. I want this family. I wanted a chance to pretend that you two might love me," he muttered with unwilling soppiness into Arkansas's shoulder.

 

"You're an idiot," Ark deadpanned. "There's no replacing what's been lost, so why bother pretending?"

 

"Can't replace what was never really there in the first place." South should know. Imagining that it had been there just made it hurt more. Who knew, maybe it had been, sort of, at one point, but her mother had been a great pretender, all leading up to an all-too-heart-rending reveal. They were doing Georgia a favor, being honest with him about their feelings, as confused as those might be. "Arkansas was born and raised by the unfeeling robotic overlords that sent him as a forerunner to their attempt at galactic domination."

 

"Wish I'd gotten the chance to meet 'em. 'M not tryin' to replace anyone, just expand the family. Let others know the stories of those who made you as you are, Ark. Gain North as a brother, too; doesn't mean that I never see Abe or Zeke or Gene again. I know they'd welcome you, and Momma would probably secretly favor you over Zeke's wife, since we're the first to give her grandkids, and while it's not the farm you grew up on an' nothin' fancy, any home I've got is yours, too -" Those big brown eyes were so painfully earnest, peeking over Arkansas's shoulder to dart between them, that she had to push past Ark's stiff arms to hold them both and shut Georgia up with a kiss. If her teeth clicked off his, she could tell herself that she meant to do that, delivering an unbalancing blow instead of an unbalanced one.

 

"Phineas," the name sounded awkward on her tongue. She needed more practice with it. "They aren't touching the baby without getting through me first. They aren't touching you without testing the kid. So don't fuck it up, okay?"

 

He flushed, brown skin darkening further as blood rushed to the bruised surface. She felt his arms tighten around Ark first, buying her millimeters of bittersweet breathing space, before Georgia pulled her into a bear-hug as well. "Love you," he repeated insensibly into the dovetail of their shoulders. "Love all o' you."

 

"I can at least insure that if we do get a new crew member, the proper clearance paperwork will be in order so that the Director will have less reason to wonder about who this new presence is on his ship, but how we keep him from discovering the pregnancy before our child's even born..." Ark sighed, nuzzling his cheek shyly against the mouth pressed into the crook of his neck. "I'm not sure if that will help hide anything, Georgia, even if it might confuse the source."

 

South raised an eyebrow. Georgia hadn't said anything that might suggest a solution to getting her out of the Director's notice. The whole idea of having to hide her achievements for the next seven months left her angry, but it was either risk her place on the leaderboard by staying uncharacteristically quiet or risk the child and her life as a Freelancer - if not her life, period - by drawing attention to her meteoric rises and blackest down-times as she usually did. It was easier being angry than trying to hold it all in. Other feelings could be burned away if she could focus on the fury.

 

Ark and Georgia both felt rather hot under the collar themselves, and not from anger. They were becoming somewhat unsteady in her hold, adjusting stances and shifting weights, quivering like uneven gears held too long without synchronizing their speeds. "Thought you said you weren't asking me for that, remember?" Ark's voice drifted into higher, embarrassed registers as he avoided direct eye contact with the two embracing him.

 

"Well, I'm not gonna beg you for it and I don't mean to pressure you into it, but Ark, if you wanted to, I wouldn't tell you no." Georgia pulled her in a little tighter, even as Ark squirmed. "Same for South."

 

"I think I'd best give you two another moment alone," the man in the middle attempted to back out gracefully. South released him, unwilling to be the one holding anyone back, though she felt Georgia pull Ark to face him before the taller man could break away entirely.

 

"I've had my time with her. I want time with both of you, but  more than that, I want you both safe... comfortable... pleasured." Georgia's eyes had always been the darkest among the three of them, but right now, turned upwards as his mouth skimmed over her shoulder, then Ark's, at this moment she could quite easily understand what they were on about when they talked about impossible escape velocities. There were black holes in his pupils.

 

She settled one hand on Georgia's shoulder to steady herself, the other going to Arkansas's. She wouldn't grab them too tightly; she promised herself that small trace of poise, but she wanted to feel what had left Ark suddenly shy. "I think that's going to best happen with both of you here." She wouldn't allow herself to show anything resembling fear - these two didn't scare her nearly as much as a helpless half-formed foetus that depended on someone else to breathe for it - but South could be greedy. She'd brought them both here together at the same time, after all.

 

"That might not be a good idea." Ark once again attempted to bow out.

 

"You scared of what anyone else thinks?" She hadn't run because she was afraid of their disapproval. (She kept telling herself that.) "Or does this screw up your delicate morals?"

 

The taller man had to steel himself before he'd meet their eyes, and he still felt warm as he tried to abduct his shoulder. "The first time I... did something like that, I got the girl in trouble. And the boy... I may have inadvertently promised something I can't deliver."

 

"You make a habit of getting into threesomes?" South asked. They didn't talk much about their lives outside of the project. It was discouraged. But a family with maybe a kid and maybe a fiance waiting for one to get home, no matter whether or not they'd been thought through or wanted, seemed like a bit of a fucking big deal that might deserve an offhand mention to those one had slept with, a topic that might be pause for thought before falling into bed, no matter how drunk they were.

 

"I wasn't intending to do so." Arkansas was not meant for mumbling sheepishly, but not even he had enough nerve to face her down this time.

 

"Ark," Georgia breathed out, sounding much less betrayed than he should. His tone was closer to awe, maybe even a little guilt himself. Were they both hiding things from her? Georgia had adapted to her news very quickly. "We... took your cherry, didn't we?" There was a roll of hazel eyes behind the blush at Georgia's choice of terminology, but Ark gave a quick, mechanical nod. "If it makes it any better, you're the first guy I've slept with, too, that way, and if I say you're the only man I'll ever bed, don't take it as an insult on your first time."

 

"I honestly am not sure how much I remember of it to be insulted about," Ark admitted. "And perhaps that's for the best." He slowly placed one hand back on Georgia's shoulder, one on hers, still keeping them at a distance even as he squeezed. "Phineas, you're my best friend. Brigitta, if you're willing to have our child, I can't tell you how much I do want to hold that little one, and you. But I can't. I can't trust this enough to believe it. I can't trust myself."

 

"You've been doing your research." Georgia had noted her reaction as well as the name.

 

"But not enough of it," South added on quickly, neither willing to look away first nor reveal her discomfort. "Only my parents called me by that name. Those I love call me Bri, but only when we're in private." It wasn't melting before he did, South told herself. It was only rising to Ark's challenge. She had to set him straight before he got the wrong idea.

 

That look in his hazel eyes... It wasn't like when they'd been drunk. Arkansas was fully aware of what they were doing and still held back at least some of himself, uncomfortable with displays of conscious affection. He ran his tongue over his lips, afraid to strip away that last layer of his own anonymity after revealing theirs. The physical side left him blushing and squirming awkwardly, but it was this mental level, even when South phrased it as a method of attack and defence, as the only way she could handle it right now, that truly threatened to leave him speechless. "I... I'm... I'll leave you two to it; I need to go plan." He dropped his gaze, not quite managing to bolt once more.

 

"While you're 'planning,' remember that you've got a few more to plan for now; a couple of people who want you to 'plan' with them." It wasn't fair to tease him; Ark was the best out of the three of them at working out future consequences and actually giving enough of a damn to do something before things went wrong.

 

But she liked seeing that warmth in his face, the widened hazel eyes that confirmed that she wasn't the only one balancing want and fear as she pulled herself experimentally, exhibitionally, enjoyably against Georgia's body. His arms went around her and his head dropped to her throat and South thought that maybe she could melt here as his lips closed the "B-" against her jugular, blowing warm air against her neck on the vowel as he slid a little lower.

 

Ark watched them a bit longer, though he didn't reach back. His hands gripped the doorknob and frame much too tightly. "I want to use Fisk for our child's last name. We can hyphenate it, but I want that one first." He sounded a little too hoarse to be perfectly steady.

 

"Think we can do that." South was still in a half-distracted haze brought on by Georgia's mouth and fingers, but not enough to completely block the weight of what Ark was offering, what the very act of offering it had cost him. Still, for both his sake and her own, she didn't leave half-lidded eyes on the quickly retreating hacker longer than it took for Georgia to raise his head, as well, blinking back into curious focus at his roommate before she brought his attention back to her body.

 

"Did he just ask us to marry him?" Georgia wondered aloud, only a little muffled by the position of his face.

 

"Doesn't count unless he sticks around long enough for us to even think about answering." She brought his head even with hers for a moment, tongues meeting as their tangled knees hit the floor, cutting off any ideas Georgia might be getting on the subject. Georgia might be smart, but he'd always been far too optimistic for his own good. Or hers. Though perhaps this child would see the benefits of rose-tinted foolishness. "Besides, I joined the army to get away from society matrons with four last names, not become one."

 

"Still..." Georgia trailed off, once he could breathe again. His fingertips were delicate at the pulse point below her ear.

 

She put a finger to his lips. "Take it as time to think. And research." There was still too much that she didn't know about her lovers. Most couples got to know each other first, fell into bed, and then considered having children. Trust her to do it completely backwards with two men at once.

 

"Oh?" the engineer asked innocently enough, reaching for the hand-sized datapad he kept with his toolbelt. "Think we ought to return the favour?"

 

She slapped his hand away, removing the belt. "That is not how I do research, Phineas."

 

The way South preferred doing research on their mysterious Agent Ark Fisk's history was after a good physical struggle to stay on top and control her partner's moves, contently tired and collapsed against a dark, sweat-slicked shoulder. She let Georgia do most of the browsing, while she offered just enough critical commentary to keep him more or less on track and shoot down the more ridiculous baby-name suggestions. She didn't mind the side-stories too much, and while she was a bit reticent about her own history at first, it was easier to compare growing up with North to his brothers or her early days in the field to Navy Engineering Corps than to view some of the links Georgia found on foetal development when they hit a brick wall on trying to narrow down colonial academies by their '42 rosters.  South vaguely remembered the names of a few of the more prominent schools, but hadn't cared enough to know which ones were the most elite and which ones might have allowed scholarship students. "As much as I hate to get up, you know we could just go pound on the door and ask him," South suggested, closing the tab with an all-too-realistic model of the corpus lutem for when Georgia's free hand was brushing over the bare skin of her pelvis. It brought the metal back to her tongue when she thought she'd finally claimed a better taste.

 

"You willing to come with me, Bri?" He nestled her closer, even as she moved to sit up.

 

She shrugged, reaching for her abandoned clothing. Maybe the armour would have been better for confronting them, putting her on an even level with Georgia, give her a stronger layer of defence than Ark had shown up with... at least physically. But it was easier to pull on the uniform afterwards. "He did ask for some alone time with you." Whatever the consequences of that time, she certainly wouldn't mind being a fly on the wall during that meeting. "You're really thinking about sex with him, as well?"

 

"Gonna need a few minutes at least, before round two, so might as well let him start." He stretched and kissed her cheek, in no hurry to don the undersuit, let alone the bulky metal and polymer shell they hadn't quite scattered around the briefing room. She hadn't hesitated to toss or kick a few pieces out of their way during removal. "But with Ark, with you, it's not so much about sex. I like the feel of these," - his hand slipped into the shirt she'd just finished buttoning up, and she smacked it away before he offered more than a light caress - "the sight of that," - he nodded downwards towards her currently unzipped pants - "but more than that, I like the sounds you make while I'm down there, the way your arms tighten around me when I touch you just right, the way you rest your head on my shoulder so I can feel you smile against my neck in the afterglow. I love you, Bri. And even if you don't say it out loud, you tell me the same when you pull away from my shoulder while still wearing that smile so I can see it."

 

"You poor romantic sop." She fought the smile as well as she could. Less focus on his eyes. She had look at him and see a soldier that she'd humbled, made vulnerable, stripped of all physical and mental defences, and remember that that was the sort of weak soldier she was supposed to sneer at and belittle, ignoring the rush of pride that came from her ability to bring Phineas Jenkins to this level, ignoring the rush of heat that came from how she'd "broken" him and how she wanted to keep at it, when he stood nude before her... She needed to know if Ark could do the same. Then maybe she could explore if he'd break for love as well.

 

First, she had to go assure herself that she wasn't broken.

 


	4. Just Enjoy the Show

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And now for a bit from Ark's side of the story as he attempts to rebuild.

**Just Enjoy the Show**

**Agent Arkansas**

 

_“Retreat? Hell, we just got here!_ ”

\- Captain Lloyd Williams, 5th Marines

 

* * *

 

 

"Ark?" There was an uncharacteristically hesitant knock on the door. The act of knocking itself was out of character for that voice. "Can I come in?"

 

"It's your room, too. You've never bothered to ask for entrance before." Ark rolled over on his bed, not really ready to sleep, but not wanting this conversation, either. "You bring South with you?" She wouldn't just force the conversation, but bring them to action, as well. He truly was not ready to do something about this issue yet.

 

"No." Georgia sounded rather ashamed of this fact, keeping his shoulders defensively half-hunched and head down as he stepped through the door, but Arkansas couldn't resist an inner breath of relief. He hoped that she hadn't beaten on his roommate too badly, but if she had no desire to see him... It changed nothing.

 

_"It's not like this makes any difference or anything."_

 

That hurt, but he still was thankful for the delay, no matter how artificial it might be.

 

"She wants you to go track her down, when you're ready, but she told me you were right... I have been kinda selfish with you two." Georgia gave his roommate his space, watching his feet and more or less sidling in even though there was a relatively clear walkway for once. The shorter man perched at his workbench, then seemed to change his mind as soon as he was settled in the chair and was willing to look up to see Ark already in bed. "I don't mean to overwhelm you, Ark. I'm going full-tilt, because it seems so right, but... well, I thought it did, anyway. But I pushed too hard for y'all to get on board before engaging full-throttle propulsion, and South'll fight back until I apply the brakes, but you... You're retreating, Ark. I hate that. I'm sorry, but - Just... Fisk... I'm sorry."

 

Ark waited for the shorter man to work the worst of the nervous energy out of his system, but he hadn't revealed his last name for that sort of rambling apology, however heartfelt Georgia might be in its offering. "I wish you wouldn't say it that way."

 

"The philosophy's always been 'first in, last out' for the army, hasn't it?" Georgia paused in his uneasily distracted hops between the workbench, terminal, and blueprint wall, glancing back at him shyly. Was it too late to throw the blanket and pillow over his head and counterfeit the sleep that had been eluding him?

 

"You certainly show a navy's worth of damning the torpedoes," Ark responded instead, remaining as neutral as possible.

 

Georgia only shrugged. "I just thought it would be easier, y'know? Even more than with an old flame suddenly wanting, needing that next level, you're my best friend. It's an old story. But the stories leave out how hard that adjustment could be, how scary the idea that I could fuck it up and lose you completely is..."

 

"No, I seem to recall those moments. The thing they leave out is how goddamn awkward it's gonna be changing for bed once I've realized that you've been... thinking about such things." Forget thinking. He still didn't remember exactly what had happened that night, but what from scattered blurs had managed to impress themselves upon his memory, Ark was reminded why he rarely imbibed, and never ever while still under the effects of painkillers.

 

So why did he remember South offering to give a demonstration of how Killian Jay had reset his shoulder with more fondness than the medic's casual warnings concerning the senior agents? That would be more useful in the long run, not the touch of her hand on his shoulder, not the smell of her breath as it brushed his ear, her voice too loud as she ran her palm down his still-smarting bicep.

 

They'd all been reaching that delicate state of cheerful drunkenness from different directions. Georgia was already plenty cheerful and now sloshed enough to require the help of Arkansas's other side for balance as South parodied the good doctor. South was thoroughly inebriated, but now willing to socialize in a semi-constructive manner provided she got to mock Dr. Jay and his pet senior agents that were too dangerous to piss off, Cal for his sloppy plays for Michigan's admiration and sympathy as he vociferously played down his "battle wounds" with enough false humility to send Sota off in exasperation well before Cal and Mich dragged one another off somewhere - Ark admitted the exact moment and circumstances of their exit eluded him in the light of day - her brother, who Ark vaguely remembered had been shooting him as many unspoken warning glares as North had sent South's way before he left, Georgia for his awkward attempts for their attention, and Ark himself.    

 

Arkansas had more than likely received his share of teasing and then some that night, but all he really remembered was the warmth, the softness closing in around him. When he'd hurt, there had been warm hands caressing out the pain. He couldn't lose his balance, not with a solid body on either side of him, though all three centers of gravity seemed to eventually compromise on "backwards," into the bed. He didn't properly remember South stripping him of glove and vambrace and everything steel-carbon alloy up to his shoulder, much less how everything else had come off. Messily, he expected, to judge from the scurry he'd had to accomplish to gather South's belongings the next morning. Arkansas just remembered that he'd felt warm when she'd pulled him against her side, and wanted when she'd kissed him. Even that quick hot surge of jealousy when she'd reached around him to kiss Georgia as well offered a long-lost sense of belonging, of claiming... When Georgia had brought his mouth to Ark's, the envious part of his gut reaction fizzled out in confusion, leaving only the warmth...  And South had quickly reaffirmed that he was wanted, wanting...

 

Georgia and South Dakota had taken what they desired from him, offering things in return that Ark would have never had thought of accepting when he was sober, but that night, he hadn't resisted the warmth. He'd hardly resisted the thrill of their need for him, only holding back enough so that he could decide how and what he would exchange. Even when stinking drunk and under the influence of South's overwhelming presence, Ark was a man who prided himself upon his control.  He had woken up on top, after all.

 

But this night would not be so easy. "I'm not gonna peek on you in the shower or anything. 'Less you want me to." Arkansas snorted, but Georgia seemed more receptive than normal to the subtle art of sarcasm. South must have beaten it into him, as she was familiar enough with North's quiet methods of disapproval. South herself would not be so bad at deadpan delivery, if she ever bothered to display emotions beyond the range of jealous rage and vicious joy. Perhaps Georgia - and more faintly, though he wasn't sure how or why, Ark - could bring out shades of affection in her. Fierce affection, as South never did a thing dispassionately, but Ark was rather sorry that his experience with that side of her had been limited to a drunken engagement and its mind-numbing reckoning. He hadn't been able to process the woman wrapped in his arms either time.  

 

The man who'd thrown his arms around Arkansas had done so on a few other occasions, but Georgia was not engaging in the thoughtless affection of a celebratory hug now. "I'm serious about this, Ark. I love you, and if the best way to show it is to keep away and give you room to breathe, I ain't saying that I'll enjoy it as much as being with you and South, but better that than losing you. Better that than hurting you. You're my best friend, man."

 

He couldn't quite meet those brown eyes. "So much for don't ask, don't tell, eh?"

 

"Nobody said a thing about showing." Georgia settled his shoulders and grabbed his nightclothes, though if anyone had mastered the art of sleeping in armour, it was the engineer. He'd never been one to turn in early, not when there were designs to test and prototypes to build and modifications to be tinkered with at four in the morning over Grifball and college football highlights. Ark figured that Georgia was stripping down to make a point, though he wasn't certain of exactly what his shorter roommate was trying to prove. He knew Georgia trusted him with his back; it wouldn't affect his choice of whether to return that trust if Georgia decided to display said faith in the flesh, so to speak. It was a bit of a relief to see no fresh wounds on the broad brown surface, only superficial furrows along the backs of Georgia's shoulder-blades from his female lover's nails. If Georgia was hoping to add a few new pale lines down his back, across his chest, or over his hips tonight, though, he was taking off his clothes in front of the wrong person. "Want me to hit the lights? You look half-asleep already."

 

Ark's mind certainly wasn't, but he saw no harm in counterfeiting drowsiness until his thoughts slowed down to match. Georgia even sook his own bed after extinguishing the overhead lamps, and there was no familiar glow of a datapad half-buried beneath the covers. Ark turned back over, trying to assure himself that Georgia was genuinely attempting to be a better roommate and look after Ark's needs, not merely lure him into a false sense of security. As odd as the concept was, as strangely as he showed it, Georgia did, in fact, love him. And the woman they had impregnated. And the child growing within her that might be Ark's genetic responsibility, not his. In the irrational logic of near-sleep, Ark hoped that his kid had Georgia for a father. His roommate was better at unconditional love, even if he was stupidly uncontrolled about it.

 

The quiet proved too much for Ark, leaving him twitching and turning and peeking at the other dark bed. Ironic that after so many nights spent wishing for some peace and quiet, the reality of silence was what kept him from resting easily. "Georgia?" he whispered, not wanting to wake the shorter man if he, at least, could stand the silence.

 

Georgia wasn't exactly the lightest of sleepers, anyway, once he finally did fall asleep. Military training assured he'd never be completely dead to the world, but like South, Georgia was not one for doing things halfway. In some regards, they would suit one another better for it, but Ark was a little bit flattered that Georgia, at least, trusted Ark to be his restraining conscience.

 

"Mmhm?" It wasn't a complete word, but it was a response, one that was still open to what Ark needed to say.

 

"Want to work on those nanotrackers? I think I just had a new idea on how to get the carrier smaller, and I need some way to keep a bell on you anyway."

 

"You'd miss me if I weren't with you," Georgia teased him, rolling out towards the lab table while still in his pajamas. It was easier than Ark had expected to get back into the swing, discussing the values and drawbacks of radioisotopes versus electric transmissions, what would last the longest safely in the body, which would be easiest to remove when unwanted... It wasn't until Georgia made an offhand comment about infant safety with insertion did Ark realize that he was resting his chin upon his roommate's head - and with the eight inch difference between them, Georgia's curls made a comfortable headrest. "You ready to go to bed? You're drooping on me, man."

 

"Mm, I suppose I am. See you in the morning," he said, retreating back to his own bed before he could fully acknowledge that warmth.

 

"I'll be here, Ark." Georgia assured him, wrapping up the prototypes they'd been toying with.

 

"Phineas," Ark mumbled, not even fully intending to speak aloud. "That's when I want you to call me Fisk."

 

He had to kick Georgia out of his bed, but couldn't bring himself to regret it in the morning.


	5. Whatcha Say?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the wake of the armour enhancements, South tries to break through Ark's shields.

 

**Whatcha Say?**

**Agent South Dakota**

 

“ _Calling all. This is our last cry before our eternal silence._ "

\- Final Morse code transmission from the French Navy, 1997

 

* * *

 

“Good talk?” North asked, like it was any of his business. South swiped her bangs out of her eyes and elected to ignore him just a little longer. Her brother had been pulling this sort of shit since junior high; he could wait for her to compose herself before he butted in. (And he usually did, remaining in the background until he’d had a chance to see for himself whether her latest paramour was actually an asshole or just angry enough to piss off their parents, but she couldn’t really claim helmet hair right now.)

 

“Eh,” she grunted, out of words for the moment. She just wanted a nap before the next mission.

 

“There seemed to be a lack of screaming,” her twin noted as she flopped onto her stomach on the opposite bed. (That couldn’t hurt anything. Especially not yet, while she could still train and her belly remained flat and muscled.)

 

She would have rather had some screaming. Ark was one to try to talk things out rationally, never raising his voice even when he was furious, and she just didn’t work that way. Yet he’d been too calm to properly argue with, at least as long as what he was saying sounded too much in line with what she was actually thinking, and he wouldn’t let her touch him to make him scream in other ways. (She’d resorted to nearly ripping her own hair out trying to get some response, some outlet for that… whatever it was she was building up inside her chest above her womb.)

 

It was bad enough that he’d avoided being alone with her for nearly half a week. He’d disappear into the programming bay or engineering labs outside of his room, where South had no call to follow him without it looking suspicious, or vanish into some secret hideaway she hadn't yet located, or merely scamper back to his quarters with a tray from the mess, if he ate without Georgia having to force semi-regular meals on him at all.  Her smaller partner worried about him, as much as Georgia fretted about South and the growing internal problem that had united the three of them.

 

South had worried - no, she had _wondered_ ; she was simply curious, goddamnit -  if that issue was the only thing uniting them, the only reason Ark might have to involve himself with either of them outside of missions, and had set out to track him down and ask him about it. His evasions only made her more incensed. Let Georgia worry. She’d been _angry_ when she’d finally managed to corner him.

 

He’d come back to his old hideout at last, the one where the shit had gone down, and had been looking at the walls like they’d spill the secrets of what the hell he was supposed to do next if he just concentrated hard enough. South slammed into his table, knocking his datapad full of notes and lists and plans across the room so that he’d pay attention to the important stuff.

 

“Brigitta,” he addressed her mildly, as if she’d simply cleared her throat. Maybe Ark did get her. But understanding her was not the same as caring for- was not what she was after.

 

“Don’t call me that, asshole. You want to stick to South, you can stick to South. But you don’t get to avoid me.” She planted herself on the table where she could glare down at him if necessary, but Ark just ducked under the desk, off to regain what she’d shoved away.

 

“You needn’t concern yourself, South; I haven’t been avoiding you in particular.” He was distracted, retrieving the datapad and not looking at her. So it wasn’t _personal; that_ sure made her feel better.

 

“So what have you been avoiding, Ark?  Georgia’s fucking worried about you.” That was the easy cover. It was true. “Florida said he wasn’t sure what you were up to and I refuse to get updates from York or Cal, as if they even had any clue as to what the hell you were doing.”

 

Rising with the datapad in hand, Ark met her eyes. “I’ve been busy. If you must know, I’ve been investigating avenues of discretely acquiring certain supplies.”

 

It was hardly fair that even when she had her knee underneath her on the table, even when he was on a step lower in the pit beneath the chairs, she still had to look up to meet his gaze. Her brother stood every bit as tall as Arkansas, but there was a difference in raising her chin to match North’s level and tilting upwards to lock grey eyes with hazel. South sat up a little higher, bouncing off her heels.  

 

“You’re freaking out over how we’re gonna get diapers.” Ark wasn’t the only one who was getting good at translating standard modus operandi. ”They had to rebuild half the ship, we just got our armour enhancements, oh, and my brother’s best friend runs a rum-running ring that the Director has elected to ignore, and you’re afraid we can’t sneak a few bottles of formula in with the whiskey? We’ve got this covered, Fisk.” She laughed, until she finally mentally added up the name she’d used for him and the softness in his eyes.

 

“York’s helpful pilots assist in his schemes because they may have a cut of what they smuggle onto the Mother of Invention,” Ark reminded her, shaking his head. “I doubt that they desire baby clothes in their officers’ quarters, nor would such things blend in with their normal rations. Besides, that avenue would require involving York.”

 

“Who can’t keep his mouth shut for shit,” South groaned in agreement.

 

She’d hoped she could talk North into asking York, implying that the supplies were for his girlfriend, who would rather remain anonymous, but that would work better if her twin even noticed the women making cow eyes at him, much less seemed the type to secretly knock any of them up. If North ever settled down, they’d hear it from the woman first; the hypothetical siren would have to explain it slowly and publicly before North picked up on romantic signals and South sure wasn’t planning to help. Especially not if it was Virginia.  

 

“Look, if you and Georgia plan on whittling a crib out of raw lumber and moulding bottles from plastic blocks, that’s fine, but don’t expect me to knit or anything. We are gonna have to get some obvious supplies, and I’d rather spill to Three Four Three-R than the Director.” She lounged back on the table as Ark finally took a damn seat - out of range of her, of course, but at least on her level, where they could watch each other. She’d scoot his way when she felt like it.

 

"That may be inevitable," Ark allowed, “as there are items beyond infant supplies that we’ll require well before the due date.” His gaze was too pointed to meet, and not quite soft.

 

“Tch,” she looked away with a shrug, “I can eat what I want. It’s not like they don’t offer healthy stuff here anyway, right? And I steal North’s sweatpants all the time. No big deal.” She’d made off with one or two of Georgia’s T-shirts, as well. They were a little big in the shoulders and not quite long enough for her torso, as frayed as they were, but Phineas hadn’t minded the sight of her in an off-the-shoulder crop-top that smelled of him and neither had she.

 

“Your armour, however, was made to fit you. Not you and our child.” He’d picked that damn datapad back up, thumbing through his notes as if to make up for the fact that he’d directly acknowledged that all this baby gear wasn’t something that they’d been planning on smuggling on a whim - she was pregnant, and it was either his or their partner’s.

 

“Well. as long as the kid’s protected, then. Gotta keep the brood mare in good shape until I pop out a little continuation of the Fisk family line for Georgia to coo all over so that we’re not bugging you for affection.” South had meant to sound mocking, but it came out too bitter. It came out too close to fears that she refused to acknowledge for being too pointless to hurt her as much as they did.

 

Phineas loved her without question, after all. But he loved this man without question, too, which meant that it was up to her to question for Georgia. And that made her further question Phin’s reasons for loving her, too. Seemed like only Georgia and North, two of the sweetest, most patient and forgiving men on the team by anyone’s standards could really love her. Only Florida, who gave her brother and lover a run for their money in terms of goodwill, could she truly call her friend beyond that. The rest merely tolerated her, at best.  Except, maybe, for the man gripping his datapad a little too tight.

 

“Oh, Brigitta…” She lashed out as his shoulders dropped, but he caught the open hand before she could connect the blow and raised it to his lips.

 

“Don’t,” she insisted. That name was behind her. If this tenderness was false, then she’d rather none at all.

 

“When I first met you, I did fear that he would be the only one needing affection, you know.” Ark was quiet, but he hadn’t let go of her hand, even when she pulled halfheartedly away. “Phineas was head over heels, and while I thought you were beautiful, you were too petty, too angry, too callous to be worth pursuing.”

 

“I don’t hide who I am.” And she was cruel and stubborn and selfish and prone to cheap shots, especially where the men she loved were concerned. She didn’t even like acknowledging that she loved them, because then they could point out her weaknesses and it might mean something to her. “Like you’re much better anyway, you frigid high-and-mighty asshole.”

 

She would have loved him to try and deny it, at least the first one, but all he gave her was an intensely crooked smile. And he called her callous. “I demonized you when we first met, you know. You’d won my best friend’s time and trust without trying, and I was more than jealous. I didn’t know why he’d given his heart to a hellbeast, but then I realized that was more about the fact that I’d fallen for him, whether or not I’d wanted to. I begin to see why he loves you, too, now that I know I won’t lose Phineas to you before his birth name even begins to feel normal on my tongue.  But even so, I want something of you all to myself. Not just something I share with Phin and North and the baby, but there’s got to be something between us that would explain why we look past one another’s flaws and see not just the other person that Georgia fell for, but someone we dare personally risk our hearts with. Perhaps that is selfish of me, but it’s only fair trade - I give you a side of me that very few ever see, and if I’m to let you know my name, I’d like to reclaim yours for my own use.” Damn him for the purr in his last few words. Damn the man for his arrogance. Damn her for feeling the same, if not in the specific thing she wanted from him.

 

“What if I don’t want that name back?” She was splayed across the desk from where she’d lunged at him, her hand still in his. “I’d rather just have yours.”

 

“Bri-” She grabbed the back of his head with her free hand and pulled his lips to hers before he could finish. “Brigit-” he tried again, and she held on a little more fiercely. “My Bri-” He was as stubborn as she was, but this was the sort of operant conditioning she could get behind, if only because it involved kissing Ark breathless. As she pulled herself upright and into his lap, she wondered how many tries it had taken Georgia to get Ark to call him Phin. “My Brigitta Fisk,” Ark managed at last, holding her back with a hand against her chest. His other hand gripped the table edge to keep them upright, though her perch upon his thighs did feel a little wobbly. “Is that close enough for you?”

 

“Nope,” she informed him, squirming to remind him of just where his hand was located. “I’m fucking your best friend, too.”

 

“So I’ve seen.” Ark managed to keep his tone fairly dry even as his hands dropped to try and still her hips, even if the words came out a little more breathless than he probably intended.

 

And oh, she wanted to ride Phineas right in front of him, bouncing on his cock while she made eye contact with her next intended, mounting Ark with Phin’s cum dripping down her thighs, letting them take turns licking her clean while her pussy was filled from both of them, watching them lick away the mixture of semen and her own juices from one another’s mouth and dick… But Ark hadn’t stuck around since that first night and she _needed_ him, needed him now.

 

“And despite what you might think of me, I’m not screwing either of you a couple times and then moving on. We’re not fuckbuddies.” Ark’s hair was a lot shorter, making it harder to get a firm grip, but the texture of his tight curls was hypnotizing to run her fingers across.

 

“We rate so highly as fuckbuddies? I hadn’t dared to dream.” He raised an eyebrow, keeping her steadier than she wanted him to with an arm-bar from shoulder to chest. She was so close; she could feel that she wasn’t the only one aching for more, but he released his hold on the desk long enough to pull her hand away from the hem of his pants. She wanted to get a reminder for what the rest of his hair felt like.

 

“If we break up, it’ll involve some giant mess of a divorce court media circus, at minimum.” She nipped his lower lip. He risked his balance if he brought a second hand into play, and if he forced her back against the table with superior weight, it only worked in her favour. She planned to abuse the advantage for all it was worth. “Probably at least one of us will end up with prison time.”

 

"They'll never take us alive." That was what she wanted to hear, but Ark was too quick to pull away.

 

“I’ll remind Phineas to sign the prenup. I’d advise him to read it, but I don’t think it’d do much good.” Ark was unsteady as he adjusted his grip to pry her from the full-body embrace she’d secured from his hips to his head, but remained merciless as he sat her before him on the desk. She was still well within range to reach him, and chose to remind him of this fact with a shoe trailing up his inner thigh - gently, for now. “He is desperately in love with us, you know.”

 

“Yeah, but that’s not why you’ve been avoiding me, Ark. That’s not why I’m here.” She dared him to deny that he’d been avoiding her in particular again and derail the point it hurt her to make. Her toe was still rubbing little circles somewhere warm and sensitive.

 

He placed a hand on her knee rather absently, running his fingers lower to capture her shin. “You’re here to bully your way into the title of Mrs. Erik Fisk, because you’re desperately in love with me, too, and nearly as scared of admitting it as I am, because you are worth loving, but that would mean admitting I was wrong in front of you, and if I cop to that, you will never, ever let me live it down.”

 

He hadn’t met her eyes, so she caught his sharp, strong jaw and leaned down to rest her forehead to his. He was learning the best way to make her more comfortable, even if the tabletop didn’t grant her more than a couple inches over his head even when he was slouching in his seat. “Nope. Mrs. Fisk-Jenkins, but the proper proposal will come when we’re all together. This is just between the two of us, Erik.”

 

“I’m fairly certain polyandry’s illegal in most places.”

 

“I’m pretty sure legality can suck both my boyfriends’ dicks. No, wait, I've got that covered. C’mere.” He let her kiss his face, but stood - and not to get a better angle for clothing removal.

 

He was still frustratingly shy about physical affection - they hadn’t done any genetic testing yet, but she was almost certain that the child had to be Phineas’s, as Ark- _Erik_ never had gone for a second night with her. He wanted her, at least on an instinctual level; today’s interaction confirmed that. But damn if he ever let his instincts and conflicting emotions override cold reason. Those hands against her shoulders, forever squeezing her at a frustratingly long arm’s length, were worse than the outright rejection that she insisted she didn’t fear.

 

“I was thinking we could use this room for a nursery,” Erik added apropos of nothing more than his desperation for a subject change. “We can take out most of the tables, put in a bit of storage. It’ll probably be safer if there’s a stairway down to the crib, so the little one’s not immediately attempting to crawl out to us.”

 

“We’ll stress-test the changing table once we decide which one we want to keep.” She could at least settle her hands atop his, remind him that he only had to slide them down a few inches before he reached a soft spot. He seemed afraid of softness. “Or we could try all of ‘em.”

 

“Brigitta,” Ark closed hazel eyes, keeping his arms locked a breath longer. “Bri,” he corrected himself. “Give me time, I beg you. I do love you, but I’m not ready for that.”

 

“You’d rather with Phin, then?” She tried to keep the jealousy out of her voice. She wanted them together. She wanted them happy. She wanted to watch. But she also wanted to touch. She wanted their touch so desperately, so selfishly. She wanted to wake up sandwiched in their naked arms again and know that she hadn’t blown her only chance at fulfillment.

 

“I’d rather not be pushed,” Erik answered, which wasn’t a real answer. “I need to know your mind before I truly know your heart and body.”

 

She spread her hands in a dismissive shrug, stepping back and throwing off his grip. “What don’t you know already? I’m not hiding anything.” Her arms were wrapped too tightly about herself, but it kept her from reaching back out.

 

“You’re not hiding,” he repeated back, his tone more an incredulous laugh than outright sarcasm or inquiry. “You shut off so quickly, South. You let your emotions leak through, practically wear the cruel ones on your sleeve, but the moment I pull away, there are no tender ones left, are there? What happens when you can no longer touch not merely due to desire, but due to physical distance or injury?”

 

“What are you so afraid of when we could?” She lowered her volume when that came out too ragged, eyes going to ground. “Look, I’m not good at saying it.  You kinda suck at showing it. Maybe… Maybe this won’t work. Probably so.” Her laugh was bitter, but it wasn’t directed at Ark. “But fuck me, Erik, I want it to. I want to think there’s a future for you and me and Phin and the kid, a future where I’m not just North’s twin; I’ve got you guys, too, and… goddamnit I’m bad at this,” she spat, because she could swear reflexively and never think much of it, but some four-letter words were too potent even in private.

 

“You think it’s easy for me to have said it three times in the past fifteen minutes?” He stayed at a distance, but he’d reached for her chin. “Stay with me, Brigitta. Talk with me. About this future, if not us. The plans are more important than saying the words.”

 

“Yeah, but they are,” she mumbled, her gaze sliding away once more. North would’ve let her hug it out, but she didn’t want North holding her right now. It was a hell of a lot easier to show than say, but saying it meant she was thinking about the future. The future with Ark and Georgia and their unborn baby... “and it’s so easy to for it to all go to shit.”

 

He nodded slowly, something bittersweet in his eyes.

 

He’d been at her side when they’d infiltrated a Covenant cruiser, a group of four divided in two as they tried anything to distract the aliens from destroying their own Mother. He’d sent off Georgia with Virginia to go blow shit up, keeping South at his own side, none of them sure they’d see each other again. South wasn’t sure whether to feel honored or mistrusted that Ark had wanted her to guard him while he hacked the mainframe instead of being sent off with his best friend or left to find her own brand of trouble to cause with or without their senior agent’s help while her boys collaborated. It could have gone down so many ways, and Arkansas had wanted _her_ while facing a pretty fucking close brush with death. South told herself that it would’ve been fine without Virginia, but if they’d lost Georgia… Why had Ark picked her?

 

Worst any of them had suffered was her leg wound, bruises all around, and minor concussions courtesy of Phin’s physical bombs to augment Ark’s everything-in-the-kitchen-sink attempts at frying the Covvie software, but she couldn’t decide which of her men had looked guiltier when they’d limped away from the wreckage. They were all thrilled to be alive, ready to crack open some brews and laugh at their wounds and sit up and talk until the wee hours, but that was the last time Ark had thrown his arms around her unprompted. They’d risked that future by volunteering for the counter-invasion, and at that point, they didn’t even know all they’d risked.

 

But it had already been at risk when they’d first found Covenant instead of Innies at the end of that distress call. It had been at risk since they met on that Pelican, Georgia across from her and Arkansas at his side. It would still be at risk for a very, very long time.

 

Ark knew that, and had run, the big baby. But he had his hands on her shoulders. “Still worth a try?”

 

“Yeah,” she answered his too-soft question, like he’d have to ask. “Always. I... I don’t do planning, especially not for possibilities that seem so far out of reach, but I want to enjoy what we’ve got. I want to keep it. I kinda wanna keep you.” Her hand to his wasn’t too far past his boundaries, or she told herself that she didn’t really care if it was. South had always been one to push limits, especially silly self-proscribed ones that kept her from getting what she wanted. And she wanted Ark. She wanted him for sex, certainly, but the immediate desire wasn’t as powerful as the desire to know that Erik would still be in her arms when she next woke up.  She loved him.

 

But the catch-22 of loving Arkansas was that if he wasn’t sure he wanted her, she wouldn’t be able to to act on that want, that love, because she wanted him to get what he wanted, too. She hoped that included her, even if “hoping” sounded way too weak and pointless to vocalize, even to herself. Fuck _hoping_ he wanted her, she was going to find a way to _make_ him want her, if his desires were really going to mean that much to her. (And damn them both and Phin beside them, they just might.)

 

“How fortunate that at least one of us is used to planning around whatever harebrained impulses you and Georgia suddenly decide to follow. I want to keep you, too,” Erik murmured fondly, his posture still too stiff for her to rush into his arms.

 

“So if we’re not going to make out like a pair of hormone-addled teenagers,” and while she was half a decade past those years, she certainly had the excuse of flowing hormones, she figured, “you want to share what methods you had planned? And maybe when you last ate and slept?” It might be hard to match his soft hazel stare, but it didn’t require waiting for Ark to blink first to take notice of at least some of the red veining those eyes or the shadows beneath. Ark wasn’t outwardly overdramatic,not like North sometimes accused his sister of being, but he didn’t take care of himself when something was bothering him.

 

“Recently enough,” Erik attempted to placate her. “Phin’s been worried about me, after all, and I can’t exactly hide a bad case of insomnia when he stays up most of the night and you pop up at ungodly hours of the morning.” He was too quick to brush away her concerns, too slow to answer the questions that had driven him back in here. When he was trying to use those answers as distraction, she knew he was frightened.

 

Arkansas got shit done. Arkansas could handle pressure and still come up with creative solutions to whatever problems he was facing. Ark had retreated into a back room and stared at his datapad through the night and forgotten meals and didn’t have a clue as to where to even start on the matter of this unexpected child or its other potential parents that had barrelled their way into his life.  

 

South let her mouth and eyebrow twist upwards, unsure whether to be amused, sympathetic, or scared out of her wits. “As much as I like the idea of getting you on your knees and letting you eat something that I know you’ll sleep well after,” and liked seeing Ark’s eyes widen despite himself, nostrils flaring in something between desire and embarrassment, “maybe it’s time to just fix you a hot cup of tea and tuck you in. That’s what moms do in the outer colonies when you’re up all night worrying about something stupid and trivial like feelings and shit we’ve already got covered, right? Figure it can’t hurt to try on you once.” She shrugged as his expression melted, but it wasn’t into the affection she’d been hoping for.

 

Erik looked horrified, about three seconds away from bursting into tears. “What?” she asked, but he merely shook his head, pushing off from her grip. He straightened his spine as he turned away, heading for the door up the stairs. “Ark? What the fuck?”

 

“I’m sorry, South; I can’t right this moment.” If he hadn’t bitten his words off so tightly, she could have sworn that she heard a damp warble in his voice. His back was straight as he strode off, but his shoulders were drawn slightly too high for the calm he tried to pretend he carried. So he was off to a new bolt hole. South tore her fingers through her hair with a short growl. And they called her overdramatic.

 

She let him have a head start, but pounded up the stairs behind him, hardly masking the fact that she was shadowing him even if she didn’t call out in words. The confused curses in her head were overwhelming anything coherent she might say to her lover to comfort or interrogate him, so South Dakota was left doing her best impression of an angry Maine in her frustration.

 

Ark had paused about two turns down the hallways, forehead and hands pressed into the wall, but Florida caught him from the other direction before South could corner the tall hacker, and Ark pushed back off with a distant, slightly brittle smile when the oldest agent called out a greeting to him. “I was just heading down to dinner. Would you like to join me? Hey, South! You know you’re welcome too; the more the merrier, as my Pa used to say!”

 

South attempted to adjust her grimace into something slightly more sociable, eyes left on Ark as she answered Butch’s invitation. “I’ve already eaten. But you two have fun.” If her lover was going to act like a kid, she wouldn’t turn down a free babysitter right now. There was the actual kid to deal with, after all. She barely returned Florida’s wave with a gesture that avoided obscenity only by speed and sloppy execution before heading back to her room. North was already in, and she didn’t feel like talking anymore.

 

Still. “Hey, bro?” Erik had given her his name, but how long had it been since she last called North “Ben?” How long since anyone had used Bri?

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Love you.” It got easier with practice. “But shut up.”

 


	6. Thunder Blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> South gets airsick. Carolina gets suspicious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will likely go back and add more between this one and "Just Enjoy the Show," but as warned in the tags, oneshots turn up as they're written in the same verse, but I've not necessarily got everything covering the whole plot right now, so there may be some time-skips until I can fill 'em in.

**Thunder Blues**

**Agent South Dakota**

 

_You stupid pieces of @#!%, I was in the army too, and I didn't forget four years of training the moment my egg's perimeter was breached! You think just because I can't see my feet right now that I can't put one of them up your cowardly ninja asses?_

 

\- Kazumi Kaito, Order of the Stick

 

* * *

 

 

The first knock on the door was hesitant, gentle. "South? You all right? You've been in there for a long time." This was self-evident enough that South felt no need to respond to Massa with anything other than another heave.

 

"What? You trying to get bulimic on us? That's not the best way to get rid of the mac and cheese that I didn't shove your face into," Virginia added from beyond the closed door. "If you start slacking off in your training while running between only the mess and the bathroom, you're bound to put on a few pounds."

 

"Go... fuck yourself... with... your arrows." It wasn't South's best comeback ever, and delivered too weakly between pants, but she was definitely not feeling up for anything more creative at the moment. The tastes of steel and acid had become stronger and more frequent in the last few weeks, no matter what she attempted to wash them away with. She'd tried to stay strong, but there was only so much she could take. The boys wanted to coddle her while she was sick, but both she and Ark insisted that the best way to do so was to run interference while she made her way for one more trip to kneel over the can. Why North had decided that his best defense included bringing up how many times she'd gotten sick on family road trips was beyond her, but it was an excuse to shoot from the Pelican to bathroom as soon as they'd landed.

 

"Really, though, South, if you're nauseous, stop by the medbay and I'll see if we can get you something to help. You can come talk to us anytime, all right?" Massa was much too cheery, and this was coming from a woman who slept with Georgia.

 

"Go away." South stayed bent over until two sets of footsteps retreated, until her stomach settled as much as it ever would, before she rose to wash the dregs of bile out of her mouth. When she opened the door, she wasn't alone.

 

"How long?" Carolina had her arms crossed, armor on, voice hard even with her expression hidden behind the helmet.

 

"I don't know, twenty minutes? When'd you start timing our bathroom breaks?" South shrugged irritably, wiping her hand across her mouth and using the motion to check for any other unwanted company in the ladies' locker room. As far as she could tell, she was clear, but Mich had an annoying tendency to be much too quiet and small to register immediately within her field of vision.

 

Carolina lowered her voice, but her patience also seemed to be dropping. "How long have you been pregnant?"

 

"You seem to know without me telling you, so why don't you figure it out?" It had only been what, ten or eleven weeks? And already the others were starting to figure it out? Whatever backup plan Ark had in mind, they might have to use it sooner than South had thought. She hoped it was ready, because she really wasn't.

 

"South, we can either go to Massa in an official capacity and have you publicly tested or you can cut the shit and tell me what's going on." Carolina didn't try for the concerned buddy angle. Frankly, South didn't even see it as any of her business, but Fearless Leader was determined to get to the bottom of it, anyway. She wasn't exactly blackmailing South yet, but the threat hung in the air like a promise if the taller woman didn't comply.

 

South grunted, balling her fists at her side. They could have this out now and the first wave agent might underestimate her or go easy if she really did believe that South was knocked up... but Carolina's level of "going easy" wasn't exactly North, Ark, and Georgia's. The number one Freelancer tilted her helmet a fraction to the side, and South went through the process of cracking each of her first three knuckles individually between thumb and palm rather than swinging. She was just limbering up. Carolina could start the fight. No matter how much South might have wanted to.

 

"I don't see why you need to know; you're definitely not the dad," South smarted off on instinct. "Look, if you're gonna call down the Director's wrath on me, whatever, do it, go run and tattle, since you're the perfect little paragon of virtue. If you're gonna try to beat it out of me, you can fucking well try, but I will use any and every trick, dirty or clean, to take you down before you can. If you try to hurt my brother, my lover, or my kid, I will hunt you down and end you." Their leader was not an easy woman to intimidate, but South had plenty of practice with looming over shorter individuals.

 

Carolina just snorted. "Careful, South. Someone might get the mistaken impression that you care more about your family than your reputation." The redhead still hadn't removed her helmet, but South could hear the teasing smirk.

 

"It's a blow to my rep if I can't even protect one tiny baby. Or the kid I'm pregnant with." She had three men to protect besides her child, but the best protection was not to mention that. Or allow Georgia to open his mouth in a place where he could bring it up.

 

"So he knows, I take it?" the senior Freelancer asked.

 

"Fuck, I'm not even sure who the dad is." Not a complete lie, biologically speaking. "Doesn't matter; I'm keeping it anyway, 'cause who else would? Even North would be daunted to take care of my hellspawn." Alone, at least. Arkansas most frequently needed the reminder that his lovers were still there for him, but sometimes South slipped into their room at night as much for her own comfort as Erik's or Phineas's. Sometimes she needed to call out at night and know that her brother would respond from across the room, that her bond with her twin was unchanging no matter how much she'd thrown at it. And if one morning she woke alone in her bed instead of wrapped up in two sets of warm, bare arms, if one night it was Georgia who sat up when she garbled North's name in the haze of sleep, she was getting calmer at accepting what she could reach, so long as she knew all three of them would be there in the light of day.

 

"You know that raising a kid alone isn't going to be a cakewalk," Carolina pointed out, as if South were stupid. "It's gonna be hard on both of you, even if you think you're ready for it."

 

"Oh, like you'd know?" Better to smart off than bring up the fact that she'd never said she'd be alone. That she knew she wasn't ready for. Hell, it had taken a lot of convincing - long, slow, exhaustive convincing - to keep her on-board past her due date. She still wouldn't say she was entirely ready to be a good mother, but she'd at least be there as the crap mom who made Daddy and Poppa look good by comparison.

 

Carolina nodded once, and South had a feeling that Fearless Leader was no longer meeting her eyes. "Now, with a good boarding school and a relative who'll take an interest, I'm not saying that the kid'll turn out horrible, but it isn't easy."

 

South shrugged and pulled into herself, bringing her hands in front of her just slowly enough that most people wouldn't immediately assume that she was preparing to throw a punch instead of crossing her arms. If her inquisitor did so, like South needed an excuse. "You've talked about both your parents before, Carolina."

 

"You're the absolute last person I want to say anything to, South," the number one sighed, setting a hand above the pistol on her blue-armored hip. "But yeah, I had them both, when I was very young, when Mom could get shore  leave, when Dad was... Well, I'm not looking for sympathy," she cut herself off, her tone final. "If you knew my father, you'd know why I feel like I need to make the public service announcement."

 

"If you knew my parents, you'd know why I don't give a damn," South countered. Yeah, she was pretty sure she was going to screw this up, but at least she was honest about it.

 

Carolina tilted her head, remaining silent too long even though she could clearly see the icy daggers South was glaring at her as a counter to the armored woman's inevitable shit-eating grin. "Yeah, I guess you were a good enough example of what not to do for North, anyway."

 

"Are you done, then?" She'd stopped vomiting for the moment, but that didn't necessarily mean that South felt good right now.

 

Carolina mimed tossing the topic away over her shoulder. "So long as you don't try anything stupid to prove that you can do more than you're actually able to do. I'm not babysitting for you and I don't particularly want to babysit you, either. Not even for experience," she added half under her breath.

 

That sounded suspiciously like a half-quote from a practiced argument. "Carolina? Who else knows?"

 

That came out much too plaintive for South's liking, but if she said "York," then she might as well say "the entire crew." Shit, she knew she shouldn't have said anything to her brother; like North was ever capable of keeping a secret from anyone, especially his gossipy new best friend...

 

"Whoever you've told," the lead Freelancer told her, finally taking off her helmet. "And Massa probably has her suspicions. I don't think she's shared them with Florida, and definitely not with York, yet. She's not dumb, after all. Hell only knows what Al and Ark pick up on, but I wouldn't rule them out, even if they're not liable to say much." Thank goodness that Arkansas, at least, was not liable to blow their cover.

 

"And you're not going to go telling anyone, either, are you?" South tried to make it sound like a threat was implied, but her heart wasn't in it and Carolina didn't seem all that fazed.

 

"And have York start begging me for one?" the redhead laughed. "You've got enough to worry about, and that's its own punishment. Just warn us before you start getting overwhelmed."

 

South nodded, settling for a face of stone when unsure whether or not to try to see the bright side of Carolina's casual secret-dropping. When both sides shared potential blackmail material, it was something almost like friendship... provided they could get along, South supposed. And while Number One could be something of a stuck-up, high and mighty, cold, demanding bitch, she wasn't all bad. She was at least good at what she did in the field, good enough that South could admit, if only to herself, that she was slightly jealous of the redhead's liquid fighting prowess. Slightly. Once she'd shed her baby weight and got Ark and Georgia's corners fully integrated with her and her brother's, South didn't doubt that her team would be twice as effective as any group Carolina could pull around her, but South could admit that as a lone fighter, Carolina was impressively better than her. Right now. So if she were offering South friendship, or something like it...

 

South wasn't used to having female friends. She usually didn't really do male friends, outside of her brother and his buddies. She'd had boyfriends before Ark and Georgia, but she wished that Ark had pegged her wrong when he'd assumed that she traditionally went more for the physical than the support they might share. The physical was good, though - even their deflowered Erik Fisk was learning to enjoy himself in it - and while the emotional side of things could be hellishly awkward between Phineas wanting to share everything and Erik bottling up even more than she did, they were getting better at it, and their support network was all the stronger for the steep learning curve. Maybe... maybe bringing in a few friends on the secret wouldn't be an all bad thing. It was better than bringing in enemies.

 

"I'll let you know," she told Carolina. "But I can handle a lot more than you think I can."


	7. Confidence Woman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An emergency rescue brings more evidence to the other Freelancers than Ark may be comfortable with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set after the fallout of Phase One: Genesis's Chapter 83: "The Best Laid Plans." Shameless shoutouts to the comics I grew up with are shameless.

**Confidence Woman**

 

**Agent Massachusetts**

****  
_"There was a guy in my old unit - Corporal Sergeant, but everybody just called him S-Dog; hell of an imagination on him if none from our NCO in charge o' staffing - who was the shortest ODST there, and had a fear of heights on top of that. I used to tell him it was all right to jump; he stood closer to hell to start with, but the truth was he just had further to fall."_ ****  


\- From the entry logs of Agent Georgia.

* * *

 

 

Massa had help in browbeating the three returning agents into the medical bay, even if Penn suffered through the entire ritual with an air of extremely annoyed forbearance. North stayed quietly at his sister's elbow, in position to catch her if she fainted once again from the residual pain or snapped more physically at Ark and Georgia. The latter man kept twittering fretfully between the two unintentional test subjects, while South Dakota and Arkansas continued to snipe at one another over whether it was dumber to have slipped unintentionally from a moving Pelican - _there hadn't been a whole lot of time for her to fasten the damn seat-belt, thank you_ \- or jumped out of the ship on purpose - _next time he'd remember that she had no appreciation for the value of her life_ \- neither one wearing a parachute. Georgia would attempt to add in his two cents, or thank Penn for coming to the rescue, but the best response the short engineer earned was a long, icy glare, so he'd just about given up and let the pair on either side of him argue as they took their seats on the exam tables.

 

Massachusetts performed the basic TPR on Pennsylvania first, knowing that he had no roommate here to affectionately blackmail him into staying under continued observation. The big brawler had survived the momentary death of his teleportation enhancement before, so as long as there were no splices of the others' DNA - Ark and South both stopped bickering long enough to pass a meaningful and slightly guilty look as Massa tossed out the possibility - he should hopefully be all right. Well, Massa, for one, wouldn't call Penn completely healthy, but he was fighting fit and that was all he and the Director seemed to care for, in the long run. Mental issues could be addressed later.

 

As soon as Penn was declared within normal limits, he left, ignoring Massa's request to be informed of any follow-up complaints, no matter how trivial they might be. He didn't even stick around long enough for a bandage for the blood draw, much less to see the results. Massa hoped he was fine, but someday that giant stubborn bloodthirsty man would be the death of her.

 

Meanwhile, she had two other patients to examine, and she had not rushed through Penn's check-up entirely because she'd feared he'd leave too soon. It would be easy to go straight through Ark's exam next, declare him fine except for the pain and look over South's perhaps more complicated case in private, but confidentiality forms be damned: Ark and Georgia wouldn't be arguing so deeply for the need  to risk one of their lives for the sake of hers - Georgia had agreed with South insofar as to the stupidity of Ark's actions; he would much rather that it should have been him jumping instead because Ark was quick enough to think of the solution first and therefore that clarity of mind should not have been put at risk, which seemed a bit faulty to Massa's line of logic, and quite volubly so according to Arkansas and South Dakota - if they weren't meant to be within yelling distance as Massa discovered if there was more than the aftereffects of a blow to the head and motion sickness to land South in the medical bay.

 

"Seriously, I don't need this," the female twin groused around the thermometer. "Penn does it all the time. He's fine. I'm gonna be all right, too. You'd better spend your time reminding your super-zero over there that his power set is that of a lame Jubilee, not fuckin' Captain Marvel."

 

"As long as we had the blue guy to bampf you back home." North ruffled her hair as the thermometer beeped its final reading, slower than it would have if South hadn't been talking. "Just be good for the doctor. I'll sneak you ice cream and stolen comic books."

 

The blonde snorted, punching at her brother good-naturedly. "Doesn't count when you're stealing them from yourself for me. But see if you can find any classic Enemy Ace. I'd like to see more of a guy who knows not to jump out of planes without a parachute. And how to shut up." She glanced at the other occupied exam table accusingly, but Ark just looked smug and Georgia smiled bashfully under half-closed lids from his position between the tables. "And if you can bring some sriracha for the rocky road..."

 

"I'd like to run a blood panel, all the same," Massa insisted. There was one other instrument that she'd like to use for more immediate results, but the enzyme levels should show up clearly enough.

 

"You'd better, doc; there's something wrong with my little sister when she wants to desecrate perfectly good ice cream with hot sauce." North earned himself an extended tongue as South stuck out her arm for the needle.

 

"You just have no sense of adventure."

 

"Is that what made you think you could have survived a twelve-storey drop while unconscious with no chute?" Ark cut in.

 

"Hey, I'd've been plenty loose, no overstressing on impact," South insisted. "Unlike some stiff-necked dicks..."

 

"Is it such a stretch to think that I might be concerned for a teammate's safety? Especially considering your condition at the time?" Massa had a very strong feeling that Ark wouldn't be sharing this line of questioning if she were closer to the table instead of the centrifuge, let alone if Penn were still there, no matter how long the two of them had been fencing around the subject.

 

"Is it that much of a stretch to think that I might prefer it if you were safe, rather than dragging any of you after me because I was too goddamn weak to take care of myself?" South spat back with more self-directed bile than Massa had ever heard from her. The medic kept quiet, waiting for someone else's voice to be heard over spinning tubes. "Yeah, I can't take care of everyone. But I've got enough riding on me that I can't have you rescuing me. I gotta be able to do this, or what's the point?"

 

"Point is we love you," Georgia spoke quietly, though he'd dropped the gently teasing facade with which he'd been poorly attempting to cover the depths of his worry. "We depend on you, too, though in part we depend on you to depend on us to cover for you when things get too rough for any one of us. You'd've jumped if it'd been me or him going over the side, probably before I'd've figured out what was wrong."

 

"Don't you go selling yourself short, too," Ark told his roommate, shaking Georgia's shoulder as if to wake him from a walking nightmare. "The important part is that all of us are safe, and we're not planning on anything like this happening again. But next time, everyone is going immediately for their seatbelts."

 

North nodded, standing before his sister, though he remained turned away to grant her a moment of privacy and a chance to resettle her expression. "Ark, don't start a fight you can't handle. We all know South's the best at hand to hand in the room, and she does not need a chance to prove it to feel better."

 

"You don't get to tell me what I need, either," the tall woman grumbled, though she didn't contradict her brother further.

 

"As your medic, might I offer a suggestion?" Massa cut in, stepping back towards her patients. "Your blood panel is generally within normal limits, but it's just off enough your usual levels that I'd like to try a quick ultrasound, just to make sure everything's shipshape in there." Truthfully, the brunette was lying: South's samples were still whirring through the machine, but the series of quick eye contact between the four of them answered some of her questions even as it conveyed theirs.

 

"You'd probably tell the Director if I told you to fuck this shit and refused treatment, huh?" South asked her in a small voice. Massa just raised an eyebrow, maintaining her poker-face. "Fine. Whatever. Let's get it over with."

 

Massa wheeled the ultrasound over to the bedside, shooing North and Georgia back as she positioned South prone on the table and applied the gel. The medic started just below the lungs - the air within the sacs would render a view of those particular organs unreadable, but as long as there was a great gray mass of nothing special for the waves to ping off, Massa would count herself content for now. She was still privately convinced that Penn's enhancement did no body any favors, but better that momentary lapse of the heart and lungs and brain-wave as they were reassembled on the Pelican deck than to risk them to the small consolation of their thin shell of armor against a near-four-hundred-fifty-metre drop.

 

Massa was curious about what lurked in hiding well caudal of South's lungs, but that was no excuse for sloppy exam procedures.  "So far so good," she chipperly assured the younger soldier.  "Liver, left kidney... perhaps some traces of damage to the nephrons there, but it's all old scar tissue," Massa explained as the ghostly half-images came up on the screen. North and Georgia flanked her patient, expressions somewhere between concern for South and curiosity for the technology, but Ark just clutched the edge of his table, bracing himself for what he expected was inevitably to come.

 

"I gotta maintain space for you guys to do what you do, and I party as hard as work. I won't apologize for it." South remained propped up on her elbows, only too proud to spring from the exam table and the ticklishly cool ultrasound gel because of the men behind her, because what she was afraid to offer any hint about she feared from the Director.

 

Massa passed over the liver once more to view the right kidney, (featuring similar scarring,) followed by the stomach and intestines. As was usual after a rough flight, South Dakota's digestive system was mostly empty, but that wasn't what made them seem so insignificant on this view. There was another structure in the way, pressing her organs cranially and dorsally as it expanded against the muscles of the tall soldier's abdomen. South let out a very long breath as Massa fine-tuned the view.

 

"That's it, isn't it?" Georgia asked, leaning closer to the screen. One of the engineer's palms hovered above her exposed abdomen, just shy of touching the gel.  North just put a reassuring hand on each of his twin's shoulders. "That's the baby."

 

"A boy," Massa confirmed.

 

"Looks like a sea monkey," South observed, half-dazed. "Ark. You gotta see this."

 

"I think I may need to faint now." Ark had placed his head between his knees, hands still gripping the padded edge of the exam table as he took a deliberate, deep breath, and Georgia skittered back over to help Massa get him lying on the bench instead of ready to fall off of it.

 

"Don't be a wuss, Arkansas. We survived the drop, we can survive this." South offered no sympathy.

 

"Come on, you can't pass out until you see him." Georgia punctuated his entreaty with a firm, slow kiss to his taller roommate's lips, adding in his own version of hyperventilation prevention. In Ark, maybe. "It's our son, Erik," he added more softly, leaving his forehead pressed against Arkansas's.

 

Ark raised his chin, somewhere between pulling away from the physical display of affection and resettling on the thin bed of the exam table to allow Georgia to tuck in closer. His eyes did open and turn towards Massa and the twins. "Mindless animal contact can only lead to trouble, Georgia. Isn't this proof enough?"

 

"You're still awake, aren't you?" South laughed, eyes still fixated on the grainy image of what lurked in her womb, not relaxing until she was sure she could detect a wiggle that wasn't just a flaw in the ultrasound or the twitch of Massa's hand. "Get over here." Eyes still locked on the screen, the blonde motioned the two men over, and Ark lurched unsteadily to his feet with Georgia's arm to support him. "Does this record or zoom in any more?" South asked.

 

"We can make a brief recording if you want," Massa reassured her. "And you'll definitely get pictures." Ark just sagged further at this comment, though North matched her grin.

 

"It's my duty as uncle to start recording the parts that embarrass you guys," North declared shamelessly. Massa would accuse the blond man of spending too much time with York, but she was grinning as well. "Can I try the ultrasound stick-thing?"

 

The team medic passed it over, hardly surprised when South and Georgia tried to steal away the transducer like a new toy, attempting new views not only of their child, but random exposed - freshly exposed, in Georgia's case, as he'd not bothered to change out of the armor in his urgency to get South and Ark to the medical wing - portions of one another's skin, North's face, Ark's body... When South complained of foggy images, Massa made the mistake of mentioning the gel, and all four of her visitors ended up with spots of blue gunk all over themselves. There was more on her hands than necessary as well, by the time Ark claimed the rod that directed the ultrasonic waves.

 

"Pft," Arkansas sighed as he repositioned the view back on the growing foetus. He held it there, capturing the others' attention as the baby undoubtedly moved. It was only the abduction of an already-bent arm, bringing a wispy thumb towards the half-formed mouth, but it was certainly enough to make Massa glad she'd left the recorder running. "I walk in as the youngest in the room, and yet I've got four children to deal with. Thank you, Massa." He leaned over to kiss the cleaner of South's cheeks, pulling half-dried blue gel from Georgia's curls. "We needed the chance to act like kids," Ark added with no sarcasm. There was just wistful resignation in his softest last sentence.

 

"This isn't the end." The engineer's fingers splayed around the business end of the ultrasound, supporting Ark's position, and South's hand closed atop theirs over her womb. Her other arm supported the small of Ark's back, and Georgia wrapped his shoulders in a sideways embrace, as if they still weren't entirely confident that Ark wouldn't faint on them after all. Massa had not dismissed the possibility. "This is our family's new beginning. And North, if you'll excuse us, tonight we may act like adults."

 

"I'm not going to bet on it," the male twin chuckled with a fond grimace. "But I won't stay up all night cleaning the sniper rifle."

 

"By the way, the Director doesn't hear shit about this, right?" South demanded of her medic.

 

Massa tapped her finger against her lips. "Patient confidentiality is key."

 

 


End file.
